Nicolás Pili

BIO

Nicolás Pili is an Argentine-Italian journalist and translator from General Roca, a small town in northern Patagonia, currently living in London. The year of the rabbit tells the story of two women and their escape from the ashes of the eruption of Puyehue volcano in the village of Villa la Angostura in 2011.

The year of the rabbit

I

The
hallway outside Beatriz’s room was dark, but somehow those plastic flowers
managed to gleam from its place between the old furniture and the gauchesque
paintings. She could hear a buzzing sound and at the end of that shadowless
tunnel, a series of colored lights were reflected on the counter desk of the
main entrance. The man who had checked them in earlier that night was now lying
on a couch watching TV. As soon as he saw her walking in, he jumped up and
asked if she needed anything.

“I’m
fine, thanks,” Beatriz said. “I just wanted to watch some tv because I can’t
sleep.”

“Sit
down, please,” the man said. “Do you want to drink mate?”

O
n the table by the sofa there was an open, smoking flask, and a coffee mug with
yerba mate and metal straw inside. She nodded and sat down on an individual
armchair besides him.

“Well,
mate…” the man said as he began to
pour hot water into the mug. “I couldn't find the thing anywhere, so I had to
use this.”

The
man insisted on trying to look into Beatriz's eyes, which came and went between
the TV, the table, the door and his face. “You’re in the middle of La Pampa,
and they serve you mate in a mug,” he
went on saying. “So embarrassing, " he finally smiled and said nothing
else.

“It’s
fine, thank you,” Beatriz said. “Where are we?”

“Lihuel
Calel,” the man replied.

“Lihuel-calel?,”
Beatriz resaid. Despite all the miles they’ve done that day, she was still in
Mapuche territory.

“What's
your name?” the man asked.

"I
am Beatriz," she said, and gave the mateback to the man, now, looking back into his eyes with confidence.

“You
miss your family. Don’t you, Beatriz?”

“A
lot. Yes.”

“And
that’s why you can’t sleep, probably…”

“That's
right, yeah. And all that travelling, I’m not feeling very well.”

“And
where are they?”

“Villa
La Angostura.”

On
the tv, a news channel was playing the blurry images of the eruption of a
volcano. The caption of the newscast warned that the storm of ashes would cover
the region entirely in the coming days.

“Oh,
of course. The truck…” the man said. “And how are they?”

“They
are dead.”

II

Beatriz
was crying. She was alone, sitting on the bed of that motel in the middle of
nowhere, and she was crying. María had decided for them to spend the night in
that last town that crossed their way when she felt she couldn’t keep on
driving any more. That town in La Pampa that Beatriz didn't know -not that she
did know any other town around- and which name she hadn’t been able to read
from the Welcome to the city sign
they passed by on the road. Not the few letters that remained painted there.
"Lala needs to sleep too. We are staying here," Maria said and then
stopped at the first hotel they saw off the main route.

Beatriz
was crying, sitting alone on that motel
bed and holding a piece of an old newspaper in her hand. Then she stopped
crying at some point, she put the clipping back in her purse and stared at the
phone. Apart from the bed, the only thing in the room was a small table with a
telephone and a bible, that seemed either newly bought or unopened. She felt
the need to make a phone call. She thought about calling her sister but they
would all be sleeping in the house. She felt the need to talk to her husband,
but it was not too late, it was too impossible.

Beatriz
tried to get some rest, lying on the bed, but the grey light from the ceiling
lamp pointing at her would only kept her awake and more depressed. The switch
was far by the door. She wouldn’t be able to sleep with the light on and the weight
of that distance over her eyes. She put on a jacket over her nightgown and
decided to go for a walk, even if it was just as far as up to the front desk.
There might be a TV or radio that she could use to clear her head. Calm the
nerves of the nighttime.

III

It
had been five years since the fire. But from the moment she saw the ashes
falling from the sky on that morning, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The
man was now staring at Beatriz but no longer waiting for the mug back, or even
the look back, but thinking of ways to rescue her from that last word. “I'm so
sorry, Beatriz, ” he said. “You know that people say that bad things only
happen to bad people. Well, I think that’s a lie…”

The
man realized that now he was the one that needed to be saved from what he’d
just said. He finished drinking his mate, filling the room with the sound of
the last sips.

“It’s
OK. This was a long time ago,” Beatriz said, and held out her hand as if expecting
another drink.

It
had been five years since the fire burned down her house, while her husband and
children were sleeping. When her sister called to tell her, Beatriz fainted and
hit her head with the cement counter. She was in Chile at her mother's house.
She had to cross the Andes in an ambulance, accompanied by Laura, a nurse who
had been her neighbor when they were little girls.

The
eruption of the volcano covered the sky with clouds, first. Clouds made of
stone, that began to fall down over the town little by little but without
stopping. Somehow, she felt that part of them could be suspended in the air,
falling from that gray sky that had made them escape the town. So, just before
leaving, she gathered a handful of the dust that had accumulated on Maria's
truck and scattered it in her purse.

IV

The
shopping cart was filled with six large water bottles, paper towels, rice, dry
pasta, and a bunch of cans with different images of fruits and vegetables
printed on their labels. The generalized euphoria inside the supermarket was
now aligned in the different queues attended by sleepy, anxious yet still
efficient cashiers. Maria waited behind several more overloaded carts; checking
the time and keeping an eye on her daughter, that was scouring the scrambled
candy in one of the shelves next to the checkout boxes. But she couldn’t take
it anymore. "Leave that. We're going," María said. She set the cart
aside, grabbed her daughter's hand and dragged her to the exit.

María
called back home from the road. "Yes, ma'am," Beatriz answered the
phone.

On
the other side of the phone, Beatriz inhaled deeply. “I can’t smell anything,
Maria. Just the steak milanesas that
are in the oven…”.

Maria
smiled and insisted, "Don’t worry. Just put the girl's clothes in a
suitcase and prepare your things. As soon as I get the there, we load up the
truck and we’re leaving town”.

“Where
are we going? So I can tell my sister,” said Beatriz.

“I
do not know, to Buenos Aires. Far away. If you want to stay, it’s OK…” said
María.

“Don’t
worry, I’m coming with you,” said Beatriz and hang up.

V

When
they got to the house, Beatriz was finishing Lala's suitcase upstairs. Maria
went straight to the kitchen and found a tupperware full of hot milanesas on the kitchen table. She put
them aside, stood on the table and lifted the wood panel from the ceiling. She
stood on tiptoe, went into the hole in the roof with both of her arms, and
brought down a briefcase and a plastic folder. "Ma’am!" Beatriz said
when she found her.

“Stop
calling me like that, Beatriz, please,” Maria replied with a smile. “Get all of
these in plastic bags, thank you.”

Lala
was by the window overlooking the lake and couldn’t understand what that thing
falling from the sky was. It was definitely raining but again that thing didn’t
really look like rain at all. She opened the laundry room’s door and the dog
went in desperately. "Come," she said and stroked him to calm him
down. Her hand was now filled with a kind of gray snow that didn’t melt on her
skin. “Go get your toys backpack!”, Maria shouted from upstairs.

"He’s
coming with us too, right?", Lala shouted worriedly.

"Yes!"
said María, coming down the stairs. Beatriz was waiting for them sitting on the
couch with Lala's suitcase on one side and a small handbag on her knees.

VI

While
filling up the tank at the gas station, María grabbed a large bag of dog food
from outside the store. She then checked the oil level and when she was wiping
her hands on her pants she noticed that she was wearing her ex-husband's jeans.
"Let's go to Buenos Aires. We’ll stay at Lala's father," she told
Beatriz, who replied by nodding, without moving from her seat. Lala was sitting
in the back with her seat belt already on. The dog was staring out the window
as Maria did the last checkups around the truck. The rain of ashes grew heavier
and started piling up on the windshield.